The present invention relates generally to the field of incremental data analysis systems, and more particularly to using a shared scan output in file-level incremental data analysis systems.
File-level incremental data analysis systems, such as file-level backup and replication systems, use a scan phase to identify candidate files on which to perform one or more operations (e.g., backup, replication, deletion, etc.). Each incremental data analysis system typically performs a separate scan phase, in which it walks through a data tree of the file system to analyze each file and generate scan output. Such scan phases can consume large amounts of time and computing resources walking through each file in a data tree, especially as the size of the data to be scanned increases.